Slashdot Mirror

One exceptional feature of a microwave is that it will keep heating at full effect no matter how hot the target gets. The only limit how you design your target.

You can for example melt and cast most metals:
http://net127.com/2005/01/24/melting-metals-in-a-d omestic-microwave-oven/

With some research, you may even be able to use your kitchen microwave to generate some fusion reactions.

You must not have done one. In fact, an internship in the field you want to work in is a great help even if you want to start your own business. You'll get some valuable experience and even more valuable contacts, not to mention a much better idea of what the business is really like.

For instance, the guy who created that Asterisk PBX system (and built a moderately successful startup around it) started out as an intern at a telecom company. I really doubt he would have the requisite knowledge if he started out by himself. Here's an article about it: click.

A good inexpensive one-line FXO card is the ENF656-ESW-INPR which uses the same chipset as the one mentioned in the article but only costs 10% of the price. There is a minor change you have to make to the Asteric source for it to use this card -- you have to change one number in a PCI ID for it to detect and use it.

You might be being ironic, but you're right.

Of course, in theory:

- the earth is spherical in shape

These people don't think so

- the earth revolves around the sun

not acording to 1 in 5 americans

- we evolved from lower species

Not according to the xian church.

- energy equals mass times the speed of light squared

Amazingly that's about the least objectable theory you listed.

compare and contrast the civilization now with that 1 year ago, 10 years ago, 100 years, etc. First of all, technology occurs in booms, so you if you want to more data: research historical accounts. Now, you might find interesting patterns if you try to compare "techno-revolution" eras with periods of slow progression. Perhaps people weren't as stressful during the slow periods. However, one era's slow progression (like say, dark ages) may have seemed revolutional. There are other factors that will control EMOTION too, So results should be relative to perspective from that age.

Lets look at todays perspective. If we assume that emotions are ONLY effected by the stress we experience from technology, then you may be on to something. You may even find a correlation. But that assumption would be bogus. Take, for example, the differing perspectives on violent video games, violent tv, controversial radio, SCO, etc.

Personally, I have found technology to be challenging, frustrating, and rewarding. Take Procmail for example. I use it to sort my incoming email into different folders, while many others try to use it to sort out spam. I subscribed to a few high volume mailing lists, so I was always worrying about deleting an important mail by mistake. Now procmail decreases the probability of that event occuring which decreases my stress at the cost of the stress with learning something new. The point is that you will always find stress in technology because many times you have to learn something new (which *someone* probably spent years trying to model/program/study/invent/etc.). But why do many people interpret this stress as bad? Could it be that they are afraid of learning something new, or rather feel that they have learned "enough"? Assuming our minds will "forget" stuff after a lengthy period of time, then our knowledge appears to decrease over time. Doh! Time to apply for that grad degree...or two. Or could it be that people are just lazier now, so their stress levels are relatively higher? This could also explain the explosion in obesity and job outsourcing from the US -psychological disorders aside-, but lets not go there. Or could it be that technology is really just a BAD thing because it only complicates our lives? Hmm, sounds pretty logical and open minded... in a sun-revolves-around-the-earch sort of way, but then we would have to attribute the computational solutions which broke the Enigma cipher as bad too.

Stress isn't a bad thing. Repeat after me, "stress makes me feel alive". By definition, we stress during sex, excercise, reading, etc. We can stress over anything. How about this: try correlating "laziness" or "productivity" versus "stress" in certain cultures/businesses/states over time. Definitions will vary.

You can still get the MathWorld site out of the google cache. Here's a quick and dirty hack to make the google cache "navigatible:" http://net127.com/g c/i ndex.cgi/mathworld.wolfram.com/topics/

Glenn Powers' CueCat: Game Over web page is brilliant.

It helped me understand my rights.